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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28262019">être et avoir</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/'>Anonymous</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haikyuu!!</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - College/University, Drinking, F/M, M/M, Open Ending, Other, Pining, atsumu is pafall, gender neutral reader, hideous amounts of conyospeak, the philosophy of marcel as a plot device, the reader insert of my fever dreams</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 20:21:50</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,355</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28262019</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>You are not immune to Miya Atsumu.</p>
  <p>This is a reality you’ve come to terms with, albeit partially. The day this boy swung the door open to your air-conditioned classroom for Philosophy of Religion with a plate of Sutra chicken masala, mouthing off about forgetting his copy of the Marcel readings back at the university dorm, you knew your life would never know peace.</p>
</blockquote>You think you can handle Atsumu. Spoiler: You know absolutely nothing.
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Miya Atsumu/Reader</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Anonymous, HQ Filo Week Fic Collection</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>être et avoir</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is my submission for HQ Filo Week. i have no dignity left. incredibly self-indulgent and full of projection. philosophy majors, please do not roast the oversimplification of marcel. i just needed something to tie the narrative together.</p><p><b>please note:</b> set in ateneo. some dialogue in taglish. a small crumb of osaaka. drinking &amp; alcohol because atsumu is a fool.</p><p>feel free to soundtrack your reading with this <a href="https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4L7ZbHrizIivX8zyVZvjmb?si=2Mzs2pSYRt25u_owJ34pYQ">playlist</a> i made specifically for atsumu. this is so embarrassing</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You are not immune to Miya Atsumu.</p><p> </p><p>This is a reality you’ve come to terms with, albeit partially. The day this boy swung the door open to your air-conditioned classroom for Philosophy of Religion with a plate of Sutra chicken masala, mouthing off about forgetting his copy of the Marcel readings back at the university dorm, you knew your life would never know peace. Atsumu, with a personality almost as obnoxious as the bright pink Champion hoodie he’d worn that same day, had barreled into your M-W-F’s; carved a space in the shape of the seat next to you and decided he’d leech crosswise sheets of pad paper off of you for tests; let you keep his returned papers on the days he’d felt like skipping class; doodled a smiley face in the corner of your notebook with the only pen he brought to school.</p><p> </p><p>You thought you could keep it to that for a good half of the semester. The things he’d say and the things you almost did would stay within the four cold, cream-colored walls of SOM 205. Blond hair and equally bright sweatshirts were a vision reserved for the 12-1 PM window, and that’s if he even bothered to show up to class. </p><p> </p><p>But the colors spill over into quick waves at JSEC while lining up at the Greek stall. Jokes are exchanged as you pass by each other along Red Brick Road, and his hand lingers seconds too long on your arm when he gives it a quick squeeze. The doodles in your notebook turn into an active chat window on Messenger riddled with questions about <em> avoir </em> and <em> etre, </em> because metaphysics and Atsumu do <em> not </em> get along and he says he <em> needs </em>to go through the concepts with someone else.</p><p> </p><p>It isn’t too long until those messages turn to calls. </p><p> </p><p>“It’s kinda hard to understand when you’re reading messages lang,” he explains during the video call, his English thick with that annoying <em> conyo </em>twang that grates against your ears. He runs a hand through his bleached hair, ruffles it at the ends. </p><p> </p><p>You briefly entertain the thought of doing that yourself. Only for a bit. </p><p> </p><p>“Consult ka na lang kaya with Sir,” you retort, even as you sift through your lecture notes from the past week and mentally prepare yourself to break them down for him again. “Tingin mo gets ko rin yung sinasabi ni Marcel?”</p><p> </p><p>“I mean, yeah.” He tilts his head and blinks back at you through his webcam. “At least mas gets mo sakin? Lol. Anyway, sige na, pleaaaaase?”</p><p> </p><p>“I don’t even get paid for this,” you mutter under your breath, low enough so he won’t hear.</p><p> </p><p>Or so you think, because Atsumu quickly follows his pleas with, “I’ll libre you, g? Pag di na hassle sched ko.” </p><p> </p><p>And he smiles at you. Really <em> smiles </em>at you. It’s not the mocking, shit-eating grin that stretches across his face after he draws a dick next to your annotations. This one’s a far cry from the smirk he puts on when he asks to borrow a highlighter from you in the middle of class. It’s crinkled eyes, full cheeks, and a chuckle that echoes across your room in the quiet of the night.</p><p> </p><p>So you resign yourself to a 3-hour call for the guy. You try your best to explain how Marcel defines hope, and what hope isn’t; that statements like <em> I hope that x happens </em> don’t qualify as <em> hoping, </em> but <em> wishing. </em> It’s imposing a selfish, predetermined outcome of events. It’s claiming a future that is yet to happen; it’s owning. Having. To hope, really, is to <em> be. I hope. </em>You do not ask the world for anything in return because it owes you nothing. You press on, into another second of another day, believing in the ultimate constancy of change. </p><p> </p><p>“AAAAAAAH,” Atsumu exclaims, and even with the low lighting in his dorm, you see the flash of an epiphany glint in those big, piercing eyes of his. “Gets… gets! Holy shit, gets ko na.” He laughs, the sound filling the walls of your room until you memorize every hitch, every breath and fall. </p><p> </p><p>Another thing to keep. Another thing to save.</p><p> </p><p>“Buti naman.” You set your notebook down. “So okay ka na? Kaya mo na mag-recite bukas?”</p><p> </p><p>“Ya gago, kaya ko na yan.” He shrugs his shoulders, putting on that usual air of arrogance he carries everywhere he goes. If it weren’t for the relief brimming in your chest over going to sleep an hour earlier tonight, you would’ve prodded a bit more. But just for tonight, you let him have this.</p><p> </p><p>“Ge, tulog na me,” you tell him, closing your notebook and placing your copy of the reading back into your clipboard. “You too, ha?”</p><p> </p><p>“Opo boss,” he says, setting his reading aside for the night. “Thanks ulit, ah! And I’ll libre you talaga, swearbear.”</p><p> </p><p>“Uy, charot lang yon, ano ka ba,” you insist, waving the whole thing off. “Wag mo na lang ako ipahiya sa recit bukas.”</p><p> </p><p>“Gotchu, gotchu.” He nods vigorously at you, and you imagine that if you were in the same room as he was at the moment, he’d reach out to offer up his hand for a high-five. Maybe his grasp around your hand would tighten, and he’d pull you forward to bump your shoulders together.</p><p> </p><p>Atsumu hums the lyrics to a Lauv song you hear on the radio a lot—it was on RX 93.1, and the DJs were reading aloud a dedication note before queuing up the song. It haunted you all throughout the thirty minutes you spent stuck in traffic along Katip before you finally made it to the entrance gate. It didn’t leave the best impression on you this morning, with you running ten minutes late to your first class of the day and the blare of car horns underscoring the whole song.</p><p> </p><p>But it isn’t so bad, you realize. You think you might even look into it the next day. You think, as Atsumu heads into the second verse, bobbing his head along to the rhythm, that you might like it.</p><p> </p><p>“Oki, sleep na tayo,” he says out of the blue, the song abruptly getting cut off before he reaches the chorus again. “Night!”</p><p> </p><p>“Night.” You rest your hand on the monitor, right above the camera as you get ready to close it. “Pahinga ka na.”</p><p> </p><p>“You too.” He smiles at you again, even tilting his head a bit to the side. His lips part open, posed to say something more. You hold your breath. </p><p> </p><p><em> I hope he </em>—</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> No. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>“Byeee.” He waves at you one last time before ending the call. </p><p> </p><p>Now you’re sitting there, stare blank, the chat window with Atsumu still open. You stay on for a couple of minutes, adding bullets to your to-do list for tomorrow. Your eyes stray from your calendar to the Messenger tab in your browser every now and then; eventually, the green dot in the lower right corner of Atsumu’s profile picture disappears.</p><p> </p><p>“Tch.”</p><p> </p><p>You shut your laptop down and shuffle over to your bed. Collapsing onto the mattress, you set seven alarms for the next morning at five-minute intervals. You set the phone face down on the nightstand and pull your blanket up to your chin. Tomorrow is a Friday. Tomorrow, at exactly 11:55 AM, Atsumu will barge into SOM 205 with his Beef Burrito Bowl from Chicos, the Mexican stall. He’ll saunter over to the seat next to you. You’ll catch a whiff of his lunch, complain about the mess he’s making, but not before he offers you a bite. Because this is Atsumu you’re talking about, he’ll <em> definitely </em> have some sour cream smeared on his chin; and because this is <em> you </em>you’re talking about, you won’t bother to help him clean it up. </p><p> </p><p>But you want him to ask. You want him to check it with the front camera on his phone. You want him to ask you for tissue to wipe it down. You want him to miss a spot. You’re hoping that you can take the tissue out of his hands and—</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> I hope that. I wish. I want. </em>
</p><p> </p><p>You turn to lay on your side. Closing your eyes, you drift off to sleep. In your head, everything is black and white, save for a glimpse of blond hair and a cobalt blue sweatshirt.</p><p> </p><p>You dream, you dream, you dream.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>You are not immune to Miya Atsumu. It is no longer a question of accepting it. It latches onto your M-W-F noontime classes; onto the open windows in your schedule that you spend holed up at Bo’s Coffee with a cup of iced white chocolate mocha. His warmth lingers behind you in the elevator at Rizal Lib, the soft material of his beige H&amp;M sweater pushed up against you. Brief texts about Philo class become a series of messages and hours-long calls that veer off into things completely unrelated to your readings: His twin brother Osamu’s plans for the JSEC Challenge. The earthquake drill he skipped by heading to Ramen Nagi for lunch. Every once in a while, he’ll drop a <em> hugot </em> joke, or a <em> Sana ol, </em>and you’ll play along. </p><p> </p><p>“Wish ol,” he sighs once before taking a bite out of a chicken pesto panini. His gaze wanders into the distance and settles on his brother, setting up a food stall along Red Brick Road while his not-boyfriend, a Lit major named Akaashi, fusses over the display menu on the front.</p><p> </p><p>“Mood.” You watch as Atsumu swallows down the bite of his food and takes a sip from his Hydroflask. A drop of water escapes his mouth and trails down his chin. It drips further down the line of his jaw. The weight of the Klean Kanteen in your bag doubles. “Uy, magpunas ka nga.”</p><p> </p><p>Atsumu lowers his tumbler and wipes his lips with his sleeve. God, with all the time he spends strolling through Uniqlo aisles, you’d think he’d have enough time to get himself a handkerchief. </p><p> </p><p>“They met in class.” He juts his chin out, pointing to Osamu and Akaashi at the stall. You can see Osamu removing his cap from his head and placing it on top of Akaashi’s. “Sa Histo, I think? They got paired up for a paper and shit tapos ngayon they’re like, MU na.”</p><p> </p><p>“Wow, la pang label,” you kid, but really, you’d take anything over nothing at this point.</p><p> </p><p>“They’re so annoying, noh?” In spite of his words, Atsumu’s lips curl into a small grin. “Pero whenever they drag me along somewhere kita ko talaga na they like each other. A lot. So di ko rin kaya mainis, you know?”</p><p> </p><p>“Yeah.” Osamu is reaching out to hold Akaashi’s face in his hands. Akaashi’s entire face flushes red, but he doesn’t shy away from Osamu’s touch. “Gets.”</p><p> </p><p>“Hay, when will it be my turn kaya?” Atsumu feigns a dramatic sigh. His shoulders hunch forward. </p><p> </p><p>This is another one of those traps the universe likes to lay out for you. Swaying in front of you is the bait. It’s always a question of taking it or pretending not to see it even when it’s staring you in the face. Sometimes the traps are easy to avoid; they come in the form of Atsumu’s messages at 1 AM asking you for help with another one of the readings (easy; just pretend you’re asleep). It’s the occasional lunch at Rice Top (decline, say you have a meeting for an org). But there are times when they’re exponentially more intricate and difficult to resist, like now, when he’s baiting with questions about romance and slinging his arm over your shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>“Kailan kaya yung atin?” He sighs again. He’s still looking straight ahead, though you know his eyes are fixed on something farther away than Osamu’s stall.</p><p> </p><p>“Soon, I hope,” you murmur. It takes everything in your body not to curl away from his grasp.</p><p> </p><p>“Ha, that’s not hope!” Atsumu nudges you with a hip. “Lagot ka kay Marcel.”</p><p> </p><p>You nudge him back. “So you’re bringing up your Philo lessons in casual convos na? Such an Atenean naman.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ya, bro,” he says, laying on the <em> conyo </em>accent a lot thicker than his usual snark. “Don’t you know who my dad is ba?” </p><p> </p><p>You give yourself permission to laugh. He casts one look at you and joins you, both your shoulders shaking as you make your way through the crowd. He swings his Hydroflask back and forth with his free hand. The other maintains a firm grip on your shoulder.</p><p> </p><p>Perhaps it hasn’t always been a matter of being invincible in the face of someone like Atsumu. It’s the collision of waves against an open shore; a gradual, persistent force chipping away at every last inch of your resolve. It’s a message turned two, turned fifty, turned call. An armrest separating you both, until Atsumu closed the gap and started quite literally bumping into your side when he’d see you at the pickup area by Gonzaga—until he pulled you into his body, in this sea of Uniqlo striped shirts and neutral tone culottes. Somehow, his arm both feels as though it holds the weight of the sky and, at the same time, like it’s where it’s supposed to be.</p><p> </p><p>Except it drops from your shoulders right as you take the turn towards Dela Costa, and you’re snapping out of the two-minute delusion you’d whipped up inside your head. </p><p> </p><p>Atsumu slides his hand into his pocket. He picks up his pace, walking a few more steps ahead of you to greet a friend donning the same yellow CADS lanyard slung around his neck.</p><p> </p><p>You’re not quite sure if you’re imagining the space he puts between you two—nor are you fully certain if the gap’s always been this big, or if you’d gotten a tad too comfortable with him snug by your side.</p><p> </p><hr/><p> </p><p>When you get a text from Atsumu at exactly 6:21 PM, you stop in your tracks immediately. You shuffle over to the side of the brick path in SOM Forest to make way for the couple walking behind you.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p><b>Today </b>6:21 PM</p><p> </p><p>lan kwai g???? </p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>The message makes you laugh. Truly, it does; you’re clutching onto your abdomen while bracing yourself against one of the trees for support. It’s one thing for Atsumu to bombard you with invitations to lunch or coffee outside of class and study sessions, but drinking together is an entirely different can of worms you’re scared you’re going to topple over and set free. </p><p> </p><p>The rational part of you is commanding your hand to slide your phone back into your bag and forget you even read the text. You’re supposed to be booking a Grab near Jollibee, anyway. It’s Friday night and the traffic going back home would be enough to rival the lament of all nine circles of hell.</p><p> </p><p><b>Today </b>6:21 PM</p><p> </p><p>lan kwai g???? </p><p>TARAAAAAA libre kita like i promised!!!</p><p> </p><p>“Putangina,” you whisper through clenched teeth. Before you can think twice, your fingers are tapping away at your phone. Your feet launch into a brisk walk down the brick path until you’re at the pedestrian lane leading towards Moro Field. </p><p> </p><p><b>Today </b>6:21 PM</p><p> </p><p>lan kwai g???? </p><p>TARAAAAAA libre kita like i promised!!!</p><p> </p><p>came from a meeting lang but im omw!</p><p>sino pa kasama</p><p> </p><p>YAAAAAAAAAY</p><p>samu’s here, some AMA ppl</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Ah, people from Management. This might be the better contender against those circles of hell.</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p><b>Today </b>6:21 PM</p><p> </p><p>lan kwai g???? </p><p>TARAAAAAA libre kita like i promised!!!</p><p> </p><p>came from a meeting lang but im omw!</p><p>sino pa kasama</p><p> </p><p>YAAAAAAAAAY</p><p>samu’s here, some AMA ppl</p><p> </p><p>hala idk anyone HAHA</p><p> </p><p>dont worry about that na! i’m here naman</p><p>SEE YAAAAAAAA </p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>Your knees are about to give out, and you’re only about to climb the stairs to the footbridge at Gate 1.5. The breakneck speed with which you’re walking is laughable; you’ve had consecutive classes from CTC to Bellarmine thrice so far. Not once did any of those classes merit this kind of urgency from you. Hell, you’d always taken your sweet time along the sidewalk across the Gesu, taking pictures of the trees or the church right as golden hour painted its walls in the shades of the sun. Now, you had no time to stop and think about the possibility of some snatcher prying phone from your hands nor the puffs of cigarette &amp; vehicle smoke clinging to your skin as you passed by Shakey’s. Any person who’s spent more than a month at Katip would know better than to have their phones out at Esteban Abada past sunset, but you could not, for the life of you, bring yourself to give <em> any </em>shits, instead rushing to scale Lan Kwai’s skinny staircase at a record time of four seconds. </p><p> </p><p>You find Atsumu at the table by the window, overlooking the street below. Even with the neon red sign by the bar casting the rest of the room in red, he stands out, with his blond hair and hoots and the godforsaken Champion hoodie he wore on the day he forgot to bring his readings to class. Other tables are occupied by a few familiar faces—some you’re certain you’ve spotted along SEC Walk or the Promenade. Your mouth waters at the smell of Lan Kwai’s specialty roast duck noodles from a table by the staircase. Cameras flash at different corners of the bar. The room brims with the bass line of a Drake song; you faintly know the words, never the title, but you can hear Atsumu singing his heart out to it in between sips of Pa Tai.</p><p> </p><p>It might be the alcohol already getting to him, but his face is flushed completely when you make your way to his table. He cries out your name when he sees you, arms wide open and flailing about. His twin brother, Osamu, swats his hands away and takes a sip from his glass of sangria. </p><p> </p><p>“Gago, you made it!” Atsumu <em> squeals, </em>like a child running laps around the Gesu while the priest gives his homily. He lurches forward and pulls you into an embrace. It throws him off balance, and if your arms hadn’t instinctively closed around his torso, the both of you might have fallen over the table next to theirs.</p><p> </p><p>You flash an apologetic smile at the patrons behind you. “Yeah, I’m here.” </p><p> </p><p>Atsumu regains his balance, arms still tight around your shoulders and your body pressed against his. You can smell the alcohol in his breath, feel the warmth of his sigh send shivers down your neck. Any second now, he’ll pull away. You think. <em> You hope.  </em></p><p> </p><p>“Atsumu.”</p><p> </p><p>“Ya?”</p><p> </p><p>“Um, can I sit down?”</p><p> </p><p>“Oh, right! Right.” He pulls away from you and gestures to the vacant spot next to where he’d been sitting. “Here, upo ka dito! I saved it for you!” </p><p> </p><p>You do as you’re told, sitting on the edge of the bench seat while Atsumu’s company of friends raise their brows at you. No malice intended, you want to think; just curiosity mingled with the typical arrogance of SOM students fully decked out in Fred Perry and Adidas. When Atsumu settles back into his seat next to you—your human shield from what is likely the country’s next generation of kleptocrats—your body draws closer to him. You hate to admit how much the hideous shade of his Champion hoodie anchors you to a sense of safety amidst this crowd.</p><p> </p><p>A waiter brings a piping hot bowl of roast duck noodles and a mini Pa Tai fish bowl. Atsumu pushes the food and drink towards you.</p><p> </p><p>“Kain ka na!” he insists, even grabbing a pair of chopsticks himself to mix your noodles for you.</p><p> </p><p>You stare at him blatantly at this point, floored by how casually he treats the gesture of prepping your meal for you like this when there are at least six other people at this table. Something stirs at the pit of your stomach. The bartender flips a switch, killing the ambient lighting. The room is awash in red neon light. Atsumu sneaks a sip from your mini fish bowl with one of the metal straws in the bigger, half-empty bowl.</p><p> </p><p>Your head spins. You haven’t even had anything to drink.</p><p> </p><p>The night passes in a haze around you as you empty your fish bowl. Suna, one of the quieter people at the table whom you swear you’ve seen on a Celadon promo poster, orders a round of Bacardi shots for everyone. Bokuto and Kuroo, the loudmouthed pair sporting Rolex watches with their athleisure getups, make their way through the crowd upon spotting some of their friends from high school. Tobio, the black-haired boy across you, sways side to side with the music; by the blank stare in his blue eyes and the lilt in the way he says <em> Kuya Tsum, </em>you can tell the alcohol’s getting to him.</p><p> </p><p>It’s an interesting crowd. Not your usual mix of people on a Friday night, but a welcome change of pace—much like what Atsumu brought into your life, really.</p><p> </p><p>Suna orders another round of shots, this time egging the twins on with his phone out. “Paramihan,” he snickers. You note the lack of the rolled ‘r.’</p><p> </p><p>“Tangina, bro, talo na si Tsumu niyan.” Osamu grabs a shot glass from the tray and downs it in one go, foregoing the salt and chaser. “He’s hit na nga, oh. He’s gonna die, lol.”</p><p> </p><p>“SIGE NGA, SIGE NGA!” Atsumu stands, grabbing two shot glasses and pouring them into his mouth all at once. </p><p> </p><p>“Kuya Tsum,” Tobio calls, voice laced with hiccups and giggles, “I’m so hit naaaaa.”</p><p> </p><p>“ETO PA, TANGINA MO!” Atsumu downs two more shots, much to your dismay. You tug at the hem of his hoodie when you see him gagging halfway through a shot, but he empties a fifth glass anyway. </p><p> </p><p><em> God, </em> he’s so <em> stupid. </em></p><p> </p><p>Osamu doesn’t even bother touching any of the shot glasses. He leans back into the cushioned seat and laughs while Suna films the whole debacle.</p><p> </p><p>“You’re so bobo talaga, <em> fuck,” </em>Osamu says between heaves, wiping tears from his eyes. “Rin, did you get that?”</p><p> </p><p>“Duh, ako pa.” A few taps on Suna’s phone and you’re sure a video of Atsumu foolishly downing five Bacardi shots is lurking somewhere on Instagram for all of Suna’s followers to see.</p><p> </p><p>“Ugh, tangina niyo for real, fuck.” Atsumu’s hand slams down the table. He lowers his head, eyes squeezed shut. “Mga gago talaga kayo.” </p><p> </p><p>All of a sudden, you feel something weighing down on your shoulder. A familiar warmth shoots through your spine. Something hums against your collarbone, and you know, in this moment, that you absolutely can’t move.</p><p> </p><p>“Atsumu…?”</p><p> </p><p>You turn your head to look at him and—oh, <em> oh, </em>there he is, face comfortable on the curve of your neck, breath tickling your skin and nose tracing a line along your collarbone. You look around the table. Sweat lines your forehead. Suna’s taking more pictures from where he sits. Osamu chuckles at the sight of his twin completely wrecked, but something tells you there’s another punchline they haven’t dropped. </p><p> </p><p>“Don’t move,” Atsumu mumbles into your skin. “Sorry. Hilo lang ako slight.”</p><p> </p><p>“O-Okay.” You clench your fists under the table, knuckles drained of their color. You pray that the Pa Tai hits soon; maybe then, at least, you wouldn’t care so much about how close Atsumu is to your body, how he’s practically snuggling up to your side. “Don’t drink so much kasi,” you rebuke. <em> Don’t drink so much that you’ll end up doing things like this, </em>is what you want to say, but like many of the thoughts Atsumu takes up in your mind, it doesn’t see the light of day.</p><p> </p><p>“Heh, Samu kasi.” He shifts his weight. Your shoulder presses into his cheek. “I’ll be okay. Don’t worry.”</p><p> </p><p>“Di mo sure.” You take your bowl of noodles and place it on your lap. You bring the chopsticks close to his mouth. He coos as he chews on the food. </p><p> </p><p>“You’re here naman eh,” he sing-songs after swallowing. “I know I’ll be okay.” He laces his arm through yours. The denim material of his jeans is rough against your legs when he bumps his knee to yours. “‘Cause you’re my seatmate. ‘Cause katabi kita.”</p><p> </p><p>It dawns on you, then, that hope is a dangerous thing. No, this isn’t hope, as Marcel would so kindly remind you. This is blind optimism, a selfish imposition of the will on the other. There’s no point in fooling yourself now. You wanted him to say something else. Call you something else. <em> I hope that.  </em></p><p> </p><p>But that’s not the case, here, isn’t it? You learn, with his fingers intertwined with yours, that Atsumu is beyond anything you can ever comprehend. You push him away, he’ll grab onto you. When you pull away, he pushes into you. It’s cruel, it’s ruthless, it’s infuriating, how Ateneo’s long, brick paths led you to this bar, to this seat, to this <em> boy; </em> it’s a gruesome fight with the powers that be. There you were, on the first day of your Philo class, absolutely <em> certain </em>that you would hate his guts.</p><p> </p><p>You don’t though. You let him take the seat next to you, write obnoxious notes on your index cards, steal you away from your friends for a quick review at Starbucks, take up your Thursday nights. You had simply let him be, and he’d upended everything you thought you knew about him.</p><p> </p><p>Until now, you know nothing. You don’t know if the beat of Atsumu’s heart matches the quickening thrum of yours; don’t know if the tremble of his fingers are from the nerves or the alcohol; don’t know if the feel of his skin on yours awakens a fire deep within himself. You don’t know.</p><p> </p><p>So you grip his hand tighter. Feed him another bite of the noodles. Ask for a glass of water and bring it to his lips. Wipe away at the drops on his chin. </p><p> </p><p>You let him be. You simply hope.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>do support <a href="https://twitter.com/hqfiloweek">HQ Filo Week!</a> lots of good stuff in the tag. feel free to leave a comment idk i just went off the rails with this bye</p></blockquote></div></div>
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